Brighton-based novelist Daria Ryzhikova has launched the Brighton Interactive Fiction Lab, a free workshop series exploring the craft of fiction writing. The first session took place on 18 June at the Brighthelm Centre, with the next planned for August.
A New Space for Brighton Writers
Ryzhikova, author of Northern Rift, Blank Spots and Field Notes from the Loud Planet, set up the Lab as an independent initiative with no funding or institutional backing. It’s open to anyone in Brighton with an interest in fiction, and every session is free — designed specifically to be accessible to students and others on low incomes.
The inaugural session drew eight participants and explored narrative technique in depth, covering chronology, spatial composition and strategies of temporal disorientation, with examples drawn from Faulkner, Morrison, Woolf and Kafka. The evening closed with a writing exercise and open discussion among attendees.
“I am a writer who is still learning myself,” says Ryzhikova. “I wanted to create a space where people could think about fiction together, regardless of their experience level, without pressure to produce or perform. Everyone is welcome.”
What’s Next
The next session, planned for August, will turn to the unreliable narrator — examining how authors use subjective and deceptive perspectives to shape a reader’s experience of a story.
